The Newsagent's Lament.

I bought a copy of The London Evening Standard today. Mainly it was for jobs, so it was annoying to then remember that the vacancies are in the Tuesday edition.

But this wasn't the unusual thing. That was the huge number of porn mags the newsagent was selling. The shop's two sets of magazine racks both had titles like 'Readers' Wives', 'Asian Babes', 'Teen Nymphos' and 'Razzle' (and many more, err, 'obscure' publications) from the top shelf right down to the middle row.

Then on the row below that there was a range of tattoo and motorcycle magazines with even more scantily clad or naked women on the front. It was only the lower shelves that reverted to the traditional newsagent range of puzzle magazines, celeb rags, computer mags and children's comics.

I doubt the owner was a particular porn fiend, any more than he was a fan of the Pernod on the spirit shelf behind him as he manned the counter. It was just that he seemed to have a huge market of porn consumers to appease and they no doubt spent more money on magazines than the other customers. Pecunia non olet, as they say, and the newsagent had long since given up on shame or embarrassment in favour of making a reasonable living.